The Third Rail – Same-Sex Marriage Part 3 – The New Testament

(If you have not read parts 1-2, then you probably should before reading this one)

The New Testament (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1)

Hays claims that, “with regard to homosexuality, the New Testament evidence is univocal, but there are only a few directly pertinent texts.”[1] He appears to mean the current understanding of homosexuality,[2] and so, again, we should question this assertion, because while there are three references to same-sex sexual behaviour, we must look in detail at the context of these before superimposing this contemporary concept.

According to Classics Scholar, Sarah Ruden, “only quite fresh boys or youths had any charm for grown-up males,”[3] and often, the passive partners were slave boys[4]. Regardless of their former status, they would be forever tarnished and considered “lower than women.”[5] For the active partner, however, there was no such shame, and, “he positively strutted between his wife, his girlfriend, female slaves and prostitutes, and males. Penetration, after all, signalled moral uprightness.”[6]

This was a world where boys were violently abused, raped and physically, mentally and socially scarred for life and it was believed that homosexual rape was “divinely sanctioned.”[7] This was a society where, “there were no gay households; there were in fact, no gay institutions or gay culture at all – in the sense of times and places in which it was mutually safe for men to have anal sex with one another.”[8] In fact, it seems that there was no such thing as consensual homosexual sex, particularly for the passive partner and arguably, there was virtually no homosexual sex at all between adults,[9] consensual or otherwise. So what Paul understands in his culture and we understand in the 21st Century Western world are very different, and this gap must be very carefully traversed in to avoid, “distort[ing] the Bible’s historical context” in what Ruden calls a “violation of the Bible’s purposes.”[10]

Let us tread carefully as we explore these three passages.

Romans 1

“Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men…” (Romans 1:18-27)

According to Hays, Romans 1 is “the most crucial text for Christian ethics concerning homosexuality… because it is the only passage in the New Testament that explains the condemnation of homosexuality in an explicitly theological context.”[11] Linbaugh notes that this theological message is that Paul “reduces false worship to a common denominator: worshipping and serving the creature rather than the creator (Rom 1:23),”[12] and certainly Paul sees the behaviour described as a result of the idolatry and a sign of humanity’s degeneration. However, his only possible frame of reference with regard to same-sex sexuality is pederasty, humiliation and abuse and thus, he can only be referring to this sanctioned, often violent, systematic abuse of boys by primarily, “privileged men who had the power to take and use other people’s bodies for pleasure,”[13] which was, “an expected – although not exclusive – experience for the average [wealthy] man.”[14]

Ruden argues that the word translated as “wickedness”, should better be rendered “injustice” and says, “there is nothing vague about it. It is about hurting people.”[15] To make the leap from this abusive behaviour towards young slave boys to all consensual, same-sex sexual activity is to make a very big jump and one that I would argue is very hard to justify.[16]

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:10.

I have chosen to deal with these two passages together as they are very similar and raise the same questions:

“Don’t fool yourselves. Those who … are malakoi, or arsenokoitai, … will inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9,10). [17]

“The law is for people who are … arsenokoitai… or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching” (1 Timothy 1:10).

According to Gushee, the translation of malakoi into English, “range[s] wildly,” but, “the word literally means ‘soft’ and is used elsewhere in the New Testament only to describe the soft or fine clothing worn by those who are rich.”[18] Hart states that “a man who is malakos [is] ‘soft’ – in any number of opprobrious senses: self-indulgent, dainty, cowardly, luxuriant, morally or physically weak [and that to] take it to mean the passive partner in male homoerotic acts … is an unwarranted position.” He translates the word as “feckless sensualists,” [19] and, in a very similar vein, Dale Martin translates the word as “self-indulgent, sexually undisciplined, luxurious living.”[20] Given that the passive partner was essentially raped, and would lose all standing (even possibly inheritance) and was normally a minor, the idea that Paul would be addressing them is almost absurd, as it would be rebuking the victim.

Goddard states that, “there is strong evidence Paul coins his original term arsenokoitai from the Levitical prohibition about ‘lying with a man’ and so intends it to be comprehensive.”[21] Gushee agrees that “Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 contain the terms arsenos and koiten,” and states that, “many scholars find the linguistic parallel or connection conclusive evidence as to Paul’s source and meaning, even though there is no evidence that it has ever been done before [emphasis mine].”[22] This is something that Hart echoes and then cites “one known occurrence in the sixth century AD of penance being described for a man who committed arsenokoiteia upon his wife (sodomy, presumably),” but adds that this still does not help us grasp Paul’s meaning. He notes the Clementine Vulgate translates it as “users of male concubines,” and “Luther’s German Bible as, paedophiles.” [23] Once again, given the context and the culture, it is hard to see that Paul is addressing anything other than the injustice of the abuse of young boys.

Overall, the three passages in the New Testament seem to mean something very specific, that is not at all what we understand today as homosexuality, but rather something far more exploitative and sinister. This is utterly contrary to the good news of Jesus, and Ruden notes, “Christ, the only son of God, gave his body to save mankind. What greater contrast could there be to the tradition of using a weaker body for selfish pleasure or power a trip.”[24]

Next time, a look at creation and science…

[2] See earlier – “there is not comparable concept in the ancient world.” (Hart, New Testament, footnote 327.) Hays, himself notes that there are, “no convenient words for ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’” (Hays, Moral, 387), and yet stops short of recognising that this could be because the concept did not exist.

[9] Ruden notes one exception to this in Roman society, the glabri, slaves who continued into adulthood but essentially had to act and dress as boys (Ruden, Paul, 51, footnote). Also, Gushee talks about the homosexual rape of a military officer by the Emperor Caligula (Gushee, Changing, 88).

[13] Gushee, Changing, 86. He also puts forward an alternative, although equally abusive context of the passage, suggesting that it could refer to the well-known deprivation of the Roman Imperial court, particularly under Caligula who was known for his perverse, violent and oppressive sexual behaviour (88) and who was murdered during which his genitals were stabbed, which could make sense of the statement, “they have suffered the due penalty they deserve” (Rom 1:27).

[16] This would be like seeing the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13) as an argument against heterosexual sex.

[17] As Gushee points out (Changing, 77) it is interesting that the list in 1 Corinthians 6, includes greedy people, cheats and drunkards and yet the only one that seems to be focussed on today is the homosexual part, even to the extent that the 80% of evangelical Christians in the US vehemently support a president who boasts about his greed, how he has cheated the IRS and his sexual immorality, while vehemently opposing homosexuality.

[23] Hart, New Testament, 327, 328. He notes, as I have stated before, that “it would not mean ‘homosexual’ in the modern sense… [because] the ancient world possessed no such concept.” He translates arsenokoitai as “catamite,” as he says that, “the most common and readily available form of sexual activity was a master’s or patron’s exploitation of young male slaves.”